Dianne Hensley, a judge in Waco, Texas, is suing the state agency that gave her a public warning last month for refusing to officiate same-sex weddings while continuing to officiate heterosexual ones. - NBCOUT
But in August 2016 she began officiating weddings again, and since then she has married 328 straight couples — but not a single gay couple. The state commission warned her that her actions were in violation of the law.
In the lawsuit, Hensley’s main defense is that she “invested extensive time and resources to compile a referral list of alternative, local and low-cost wedding officiants in Waco” for same-sex couples that come to her. According to the lawsuit, this included making arrangements with a walk-in wedding chapel three blocks from Hensely’s courtroom where couples would receive a discount.
“The obvious solution is the one that she came up with, finding a way to be able to reconcile her personal faith while serving the needs of her local community,” said Jeremy Dys, special counsel for First Liberty and part of Hensley’s legal team. “No judge should have their career ruined for simply trying to obey the rules of her faith while following the rules of the law.”
Angela Hale, a spokesperson for the statewide LGBTQ advocacy group Equality Texas, said that the problem is Hensley was in direct violation of the law, and that religious protections don’t apply to discrimination by an elected official. “I understand she's saying that she set something up, but you can't marry opposite-sex couples and not marry same-sex couples,” Hale told NBC News. “That’s not legal, and that’s what she’s been doing.”
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